Children with special needs are children who have deficits in various areas. These include
students with intellectual disabilities, students with specific learning difficulties, students with
emotional and behavioural disorders, students with ADHD, students with communication
disorders, blind or visually impaired students, deaf or hard of hearing students, chronically ill
students, gifted students, and students with autism spectrum disorders. In my master's thesis, I
focused on the latter. As the number of autistic children in primary school is increasing, and
one of their main challenges is impaired communication with others, I have decided to explore
the attitudes of students towards children with autism spectrum disorders in more detail. The
study involves 50 students from the 2nd grade and 50 students from the 5th grade. I relied on the
picture book ''Žan is different'' by author Helena Koncut Kraljič, which is about a boy with
autism. Based on the results collected from a questionnaire consisting of 17 statements with a
5-point rating scale, we found that students in the 2nd and 5th grades, on average, had a negative
attitude towards differences before the discussion of the book Žan is different. However, the
analysis of the questionnaire responses after discussing the book Žan is different showed that
students from both grades empathized with the main character and thus changed their attitude
towards children with special needs. We also examined whether there were significant
statistical differences in the increase of empathy between second graders and fifth graders after
discussing the book Žan is different. The results indicated a greater increase in empathy
among second graders compared to fifth graders after discussing the book Žan is different.
This research impacts the importance of raising awareness about autism among children, as the
data obtained demonstrated whether using a picture book can bring children closer to
understanding differences and promote the development of empathy. The findings of this
master's thesis can be helpful to teachers who wish to address the topic of autism in the
classroom, as it presents one of the options for fostering empathy and tolerance towards
differences in Slovene language lessons.
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